Dave Franklin
Musician, scribbler, historian, gnostic, seeker of enlightenment, asker of the wrong questions, delver into the lost archives, fugitive from the law of averages, blogger, quantum spanner, left footed traveller, music journalist, zenarchist, freelance writer, reviewer and gemini. People have woken up to worse.
The Conviction – The Buddyrevelles (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
As the conclusion of the three-year, three-EP mission to boldly go where music may have gone before, but rarely this deftly, The Buddyrevelles drop the final...
A World Too Self Aware/Until The Circle Breaks – Shunya Cassius...
I always find the influences that an artist cites to be an interesting place to start. All too often, names seem added to the...
The Thrift Store Spaceship/Final Orbit – Todd & Karen (reviewed by...
I love music which comes with embedded contradictions. Okay, such trappings and trivia aren’t the focal point, but they do make lovely little easter eggs for...
Gar Francis Songbook, Vol. Two – Sapphire Star (reviewed by Dave...
Those who know their music history will already have seen Gar Francis' name attached to songs that span everything from blues to rock to...
I Just Want to Soar – JK Jerome (reviewed by Dave...
Hear the term cinematic, when applied to music, and you probably think of either soft, ambient background sounds or songs built on anthemic crescendos –...
Paradigm Shift – Alias Wayne (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
Alias Wayne, as the name might suggest, is the alter ego of an established musician, one whose music is best categorised as Americana, country,...
The Shadows of Alienation – Spectrum of Disorder (reviewed by Dave...
Beyond the questions and themes raised by the spoken words and lyrical fragments on this EP, there is a broader question that faces the...
The Roots Run Deep – Willow Layne (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
The term country rock is always one, like most genre tags, to be fair, which falls short of its task, conjuring either rock hands...
Human – Tallulah Rendall (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
Tallulah Rendall makes music that comes from a very delicate place and never more so than with her latest single, ‘Human.’ This time out, the...
Time in the Light – Strawhouses (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
Fifteen years between albums is a bit long, to be honest. It’s not quite Sisters of Mercy territory (36 years and counting), but you could argue...
Important Questions – Carl Krausnick (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
Anything that reminds me of Wilco is obviously going to be a sound that I gravitate to. Now, I’m not saying that Carl Krausnick is plundering or plagiarising...
The Anger – Kitty O’Neal (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
The singer-songwriter sound has been with us a long time, millennia perhaps. Even in its contemporary form, not much has changed at its essential...
A Shared Experience – recollections of Jimi Hendrix
The authors of a new book on Jimi Hendrix are looking for your help. Following the well-received first volume of 'A People's History of...
Midnight Blue – Scroungy Dogs (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
I know it is pretty much my job, but I have got to a point where I’m less concerned with genre demarcations, sonic pack...
Change – Lee Miller Matsos (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
“Change,” the new one from Lee Miller Matsos, is a song with many sonic moods. Not just moods, but various pacing and variable poise, clever...
Thank You For Your Feedback (i) – Cognitive Constellation Corps (reviewed...
Thank You for Your Feedback (i) is a transformative affair, in many senses of the word. Even the title is a great example: such a...
Things Fall Apart – Nathan Amundson (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
Music and literature are my twin passions, so it is always great when the two occupy the same space for me. Not only is Nathan Amundson's...
Get Up Ya Honky Tonk – Cam Cole (reviewed by Dave...
It is perhaps, in part at least, the process of modernisation and homogenisation, sanitisation and bastardisation that has taken place in blues music in...
Enemy Within – Bloodkin (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
This first taste of Bloodkin’s latest album, ‘Enemy Within’, is a song that works on several levels. The most honest and immediate one is the...
Under The Stack – Matt Herzog (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
Matt Herzog is, amongst other things, living proof that genres are rubbish and the best music is best described as just that…music. Give Under The Stack a...
Good Luck, Nice To Meet You – The Mighty Pines...
To call the sound that greets you as the title track kicks off this, The Mighty Pines’ third album, as roots-pop might make things sound a...
Strangers – The Wood (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
Even before it has fully hit its stride, this first taste of The Wood’s forthcoming second album speaks volumes about the rich textures that inhabit...
Goodbye – Damien Musto (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
Bang! Straight in. No messing around. A big, anthemic and infectious chorus as the song’s intro… always a great sonic trick to play and...
More and More – Duane Hoover (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
It is fair to say that Duane Hoover has always revelled in the sound of the sixties, that his songs always echo, to some degree, with...
The Method in the Musical Madness: A conversation with Anastasiya Bazhenova...
Less a debut album, rather what Anastasiya Bazhenova prefers to call her “first complete artistic statement”, the release of From Mendelssohn to Madness was the perfect opportunity to sit...
You Want Love – Ava Renn (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
I’m going to start with the obvious… man, Ava Renn has an amazing voice, one that blends rock power with a vibrato-infused arabesque and no small...
Ode to Disco – Norma Jean Wright (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
Although the title might suggest a straightforward sonic revisit to those heady days of the disco dancefloor craze, Norma Jean Wright’s creative time machine has...
Better Days – Andie Case (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
There are several prerequisites for pop music to be effective, a number of tried and tested elements that have been the driving force since...
Plastic Ocean – French Inhaler (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
Blam! That’s how you grab the listener’s attention. No preamble. No slow build-up. No gradual intrigue or sense of anticipation. Right from the first...
Devil By Your Side – Wayward Sparrow (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
There is a purposeful brevity to the music that Rich Clark makes as Wayward Sparrow, not so much music stripped back to its essence, but rather a...
